May is my absolute favorite month, we get to enjoy spring weather and it is my birth month. The birthstone for May is Emerald. I think emerald is such a gorgeous color so when I saw this beautiful ombre charmeuse I thought it would be the perfect fabric to make for my birthday dress.
To be honest it took me a while to narrow down on a design. After a lot of back and forth I ended up going back to my first sketch that I created. I love to sketch out my ideas to figure out the patterning and materials.
To create the design I used the method of draping on my dressform. I used the lightweight muslin that Fabric Mart offers. It is always best to use a muslin or material similar to your final fabric.
I started first by marking my style lines with some draping tape on my dress form. I tore out pieces of muslin to fit within those lines making sure I am always marking my grainline. I also used the muslin to determine how I will create the rosettes onto my cups once the base was created. I thought the rosettes would be a nice touch and play into the idea of “May flowers”.
Once everything was marked, I took it off the form trued up my seams where I used rulers to mark my lines for accuracy. It's important to also transfer all of your notches and grain information. I then made a mockup muslin to fit myself. Fitting oneself can be kinda tricky but I believe I was able to do a good fit.
From there I made all of my adjustments and corrections and finalized my pattern. Now I am able to cut into my fabric!
With the ombre of the fabric I was able to get different shades of green throughout the dress. To assemble I started first with the base of my corset, to help with structure I interfaced all of my pieces to help create more support. I then constructed the base of the cups then stitched on my piping to create the rosettes.
I love how my dress turned out and I am glad that I stuck with my initial design!
What a gorgeous dress! Thanks for the glimpse into your draping process. I hope you had a wonderful birthday celebration
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